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Landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan coincides with US astronaut Donald Pettit’s 70th birthday.
Russian astronauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Wagner have returned to Earth along with American Donald Pettit after a seven-month science mission on board the International Space Station (ISS).
The Russian Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft carrying the trio touched down southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 6:20am (01:20 GMT) on Sunday, the landing confirmed by the United States’s NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency.
The timing of their parachute-assisted return to Earth coincided with the US astronaut’s 70th birthday, NASA said on the social media platform X.
Happy birthday, @astro_Pettit! Many happy returns (including this one) 🥳
The MS-26 Soyuz spacecraft touched down in Kazakhstan at 9:20pm ET—or, in local time, 6:20am April 20, Pettit’s 70th birthday. pic.twitter.com/qFM5fAxnA0
NASA said the crew was moved to a recovery staging area in the city of Karaganda, adding that Pettit was doing well.
The crew arrived on the orbiting ISS laboratory on September 11, 2024, spending 220 days in space during which they orbited the Earth 3,520 times, completing a journey of 93.3 million miles (150.15 million km), NASA said in a statement.
Pettit spent his time researching “in-orbit metal 3D printing capabilities” and “water sanitisation technologies” while exploring plant growth and fire behaviour in space.
This was Pettit’s fourth spaceflight, with a total of 590 days in orbit logged throughout his career. Ovchinin has notched up 595 days in space over four flights, while Wagner has reached a total of 416 days over two flights.
Space exploration has remained a rare avenue of cooperation between the US and Russia since the latter unleashed its war in Ukraine in February 2022.
Earlier this month, the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft carried another US-Russia crew – NASA’s Jonathan Kim and Russian crewmates Sergei Ryzhikov and Alexei Zubritsky – to carry out scientific experiments on the ISS.
However, the US and other Western countries have ceased other partnerships with Roscosmos as part of a slew of sanctions placed on Russia over the war.
Astronauts, who are trained and certified by NASA and others like the European Space Agency, are known as cosmonauts when they represent Roscosmos.
On the morning of September 17, 1859, a “well-dressed and serious-looking man” walked into the offices of The San Francisco Evening Bulletin and – without explanation – handed over a document that he wished to see published. Intrigued, the paper’s editors carried a proclamation in that evening’s edition on page 3:
“At the peremptory request and desire of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, and now for the last 9 years and 10 months past of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these United States.”
The document then asked representatives from around the country to meet in San Francisco’s Musical Hall “to make such alterations in the existing laws of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under which the country is laboring”. It was signed, “NORTON I, Emperor of the United States”.
The proclamation of ‘Emperor Norton’ as seen in The San Francisco Evening Bulletin on September 17, 1859 [Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library]
Norton was referring to the heightened political tension surrounding slavery. The Southern states largely depended on enslaved people for their economy, but the North opposed it. When the anti-slavery Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, Southern states began pulling out of the union – ultimately resulting in the Civil War.
The musical hall burned down just nine days before the meeting was due to take place, and although Norton rescheduled it at a different venue, apparently no one showed up.
As Tesla billionaire Elon Musk continues to influence the trajectory of the United States, it seems a good time to remember another South African who also tried to shape the national conversation, albeit not as successfully.
Musk, Trump’s appointed leader of the US government’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has cancelled $1bn worth of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion contracts, drastically reduced USAID’s funding of charitable programmes around the world, and tried to reduce the federal government workforce by two million people.
He has divided opinion, with some expressing their ire by setting Tesla cars and showrooms alight, while others appreciate him bringing his children into the Oval Office and brandishing a chainsaw on stage during Trump’s presidential campaign.
Norton didn’t have this kind of access to power, and he didn’t inspire a public backlash. But he was a cult figure, says John Lumea, founder of the Emperor Norton Trust, a nonprofit which works to promote Norton’s legacy through research and advocacy, and the leading contemporary scholar of Norton’s life. What’s more, “he was way ahead of his time on human rights issues”.
As Jane Ganahl, co-founder of the San Francisco literary festival Litquake, wrote in a 2018 endorsement of a proposal to rename part of the Bay Bridge in his honour: “Emperor Norton could have been a time traveller. A 19th-century man with 21st-century sensibilities, Joshua Norton fought for the rights of immigrants, women and those who suffered under religious persecution.”
A photograph of Emperor Norton taken in 1869 in San Francisco [Courtesy of the Collection of the Bancroft Library]
The Emperor – also self-styled as “Protector of Mexico” as he believed, rightly it turns out, that Mexico was vulnerable to the ambitions of Napoleon III of France – “reigned” for just over 20 years. Wearing a smart blue uniform with impressive brass epaulettes, he roamed the streets of San Francisco on foot, inspecting sidewalks, extracting “taxes” from his subjects, and writing imperial proclamations on a wide range of subjects for whichever newspaper would have them.
As far as taxes were concerned, these began as donations from friends and former business associates. From 1870 onwards, when many of his former benefactors had either died or moved away, he began selling promissory notes. Couched as investments in his “imperial government”, these were essentially also donations.
Many people – both old friends of Norton’s and those who saw him as a sympathetic character – went along with it: some banks even issued bank notes in his name. On one level, Norton was little more than a neighbourhood eccentric who had no real influence on politics. But he was an eccentric who is still remembered in books, films, podcasts and social clubs.
A banknote issued in the name of Emperor Norton in July 1875 [Cuddy and Hughes]
“Clearly, there was some level of psychological dislocation,” says Lumea, who estimates that Norton published at least 400 proclamations on diverse subjects ranging from the rights of immigrants to his annoyance at not being issued with skates at an ice rink. “But, despite the bluster of some of his proclamations, he was also a very kind person.”
The Emperor was still a popular figure when, on January 8, 1880, he collapsed on the corner of California and Dupont Streets and died at the age of 61, bringing an end to his 21-year reign. The San Francisco Call reported: “On the reeking pavement, in the darkness of a moonless night, under the dripping rain … Norton I, by the grace of God, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, departed this life.”
After his death, it became clear that the emperor was essentially a pauper – his small room at the Eureka boarding house contained a variety of walking sticks and hats, a few coins from America and beyond, and a sheath of fake telegrams (thought to have been sent as pranks by local people) purportedly from world leaders – so the members of the Pacific Club, an exclusive businessmen’s association, banded together to give him a fitting sendoff.
A reported 10,000 people from all walks of life came to pay their respects by viewing the Emperor “in state” in the city morgue. His body was paraded through the streets in a handsome rosewood casket as people of “all classes from capitalists to the pauper, the clergyman to the pickpocket, well-dressed ladies and those whose garb and bearing hinted of the social outcast”, as The San Francisco Chronicle reported, watched on.
A photograph of Emperor Norton dated circa 1875 [Bradley & Rulofson/Courtesy of the Collection of the Oakland Museum of California]
Humble beginnings
There is no birth record for Norton, but Jewish circumcision records unearthed in the United Kingdom suggest he was born in Deptford, southeast London, in February 1818. When he was just two years old, his parents emigrated to South Africa as part of a group of Britons known as the 1820 Settlers, brought by Britain to the Cape Colony to strengthen the frontier with the Xhosa people. The British had seized their cattle and land, angering them and sparking nine frontier wars between 1779 and 1879, five of which occurred before 1820. Norton’s father was a farmer and merchant of moderate means, but he still grew up with the political privileges enjoyed by white South Africans under British rule.
By the time he left South Africa at 27 in 1845, Norton had tried his hand at a few business ventures, none of which were particularly successful. Not much is known about his whereabouts or what he got up to – he appears to have visited Liverpool, Boston and Rio de Janeiro – until he arrived in San Francisco in late 1849, at the height of the California Gold Rush.
“Out West” his fortunes changed, and through a combination of commodities trading and real estate speculation, he became one of the wealthier members of the boom town’s emerging merchant class. “He belonged to all the right clubs and lived in the fanciest hotel in town,” says Lumea.
Emperor Norton in 1859 or 1860 [Courtesy of the Bancroft Library]
But his life of privilege and comfort was short-lived. In 1852, eager to capitalise on rice prices rising ninefold due to a famine in China, Norton put down a deposit for a $25,000 shipload of Peruvian rice. What seemed like a licence to print money soon turned out otherwise, when, days later, San Francisco was inundated with shipments of Peruvian rice – all of superior quality to Norton’s. Believing that he’d been misled by a middleman who’d exaggerated the quality of the rice, he refused to pay the balance and was duly sued for breach of contract.
“It seems to me that if he’d just let it go he might have survived as a businessman,” says Lumea. “It was his insistence on seeing justice done that resulted in his financial ruin.” When the Supreme Court finally ruled against him in 1854 and ordered him to pay his creditors $20,000 the following year ($730,000 in today’s money), all of his creditors came calling – it is thought he had interests in at least a dozen properties – and many of his friends abandoned him. By 1856, he was forced to declare bankruptcy.
For a while, Norton appears to have plunged into some sort of reclusive depression, but – with the country heading fast towards civil war – he soon began to concern himself with the issues of the day. In particular, he disagreed strongly with the Confederacy and, especially, its support of slavery. His solution to the coming clash was “an absolute monarchy, under the supervision and authority of an Independent Emperor and Supreme Council”, he stated in a proclamation.
“Norton felt that, with so many competing state, regional and party interests in the United States, the constitutional republic and representative democracy institutionalised in the US Constitution was doomed to fail,” says Lumea. “He was looking for a way the country could bring order out of chaos – to rescue victory from the jaws of defeat, as it were – and thought that monarchy offered the most efficient mechanism for doing that.” But, of course, Norton knew his proclamation would not be obeyed.
In 1858, he announced a run for Congress as an independent candidate (his name never made it onto the ballot) and in July 1859, a few months before declaring himself emperor, he published a (very brief) manifesto which lamented the “dissentions … between the North and South” and exhorted the citizens of the Union to “inaugurate a new state of things”.
An Emperor Norton banknote, November 1879 [Charles A Murdock/Courtesy of the Collection of the California Historical Society]
A friend of immigrants
While some of Norton’s proclamations were frivolous – he once issued one against the superintendent of a skating rink, threatening him with arrest for “having refused us the use of skates” – Lumea notes that many others were concerned with basic human rights. For example, Norton demanded that African Americans be allowed to ride on public streetcars and study at public schools, and he ordered that those who had wronged Indigenous American “tribes” be publicly punished in front of an assembly of “Indian chiefs”. He also argued for the separation between Church and state and supported women’s right to vote.
But it was his championing of the rights of Chinese immigrants that was most vehement and prolonged. Lumea has unearthed at least 17 proclamations that deal with the rights of Chinese people. On February 24, 1868, he ordered “the evidence of Chinese to be taken the same as any other foreign nation, in all our Courts of law and justice”. At the time, there was widespread public backlash against Chinese workers who were felt to be driving wages down. Many trade unionists, politicians and newspapers spoke out against the so-called “yellow peril” and in 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act put an initial 10-year ban on Chinese immigration. The law was strengthened in the following decades, and the ban was only lifted in 1943.
One of Emperor Norton’s proclamations on the rights of Chinese people, published in The San Francisco Daily Examiner on February 24, 1868 [Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library]
In October 1871, Norton expressed his outrage at a race riot in neighbouring Los Angeles in which 15 Chinese men were lynched by a white mob and “commanded the prompt and immediate arrests of all persons implicated in the said wrong”. Of course, he had no actual control over the authorities.
A few months later, disgruntled by the city’s inadequate response to the riots, he proclaimed that “the authorities of Los Angeles are held responsible for the outrages perpetrated on the Chinese in that city recently if every person implicated is not properly punished”.
Emperor Norton on a street in Chinatown, San Francisco [Courtesy of Wolfgang Sell of the National Stereoscopic Association]
Bridges in the sky
One thing Musk has in common with the Emperor is his knack for reimagining the world we live in. As Musk has said, “I think it would be great to be born on Earth and die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact.”
Musk’s ambitions to colonise Mars might seem outlandish, but then so did Emperor Norton’s three 1872 proclamations ordering the construction of a bridge between San Francisco and Oakland across the bay. “Emperor Norton had his finger on the pulse of public policy,” explains Lumea. “Building a bridge spanning San Francisco Bay was not his idea. But the Emperor pushed for and popularised the idea – and he is the one most closely associated with it.”
First, some context. In 1871, the Central Pacific Railroad Company sought a $3m investment for the construction of a bridge spanning San Francisco Bay at its narrowest point. The idea never got off the ground as it was widely felt that building a bridge 30 miles south of the city would be of little commercial benefit.
While the debate was ongoing, however, Emperor Norton latched on to a much better idea. On January 6, 1872, he issued a proclamation “prohibiting” the railroad’s “scheme being carried into effect” and ordering instead that “the bridge be built from Oakland Point to Telegraph Hill, via Goat Island [now called Yerba Buena Island]”.
A sketch of the proposed San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as seen in Overland Monthly in April 1913
In the months that followed, he fleshed out plans in two further proclamations. He specified that the bridge should be “a suspension bridge” and he warned that it should be built “without injury to the navigable waters of the Bay of San Francisco”. He even ordered “the cities of Oakland and San Francisco to make an appropriation [provide the funds] for paying the expense of a survey to determine the practicability of a tunnel under water”.
A few months later, when no response had come from the cities’ authorities, in typical Norton style, he commanded “the arrest, by the army, of both the Boards of City Fathers, if they persist in neglecting our decrees”.
While the Emperor didn’t live to see his bridge built, he might have chuckled to himself had he witnessed the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opening in 1936: not only did the Bay Bridge follow his route exactly, but it was also a suspension bridge.
In 1974, 102 years after Norton first floated the idea, his posthumous “I told you sos” would have been even louder with the opening of the Transbay Tube – an underwater rail tunnel connecting San Francisco and Oakland.
A perspective view of San Francisco Bay between San Francisco and Oakland showing five of the proposed bridges, in 1926 [Courtesy of Erica Fischer]A close-up photograph taken of Yerba Buena Island to document the progress of the construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1935 [US Navy photograph]
The man and the myths
Norton became a prominent fixture of the San Francisco scenery. Freemasons quietly paid his rent and shopkeepers accepted his bank notes. Patrons of local saloons would stand him the price of a drink so he could “take a free pass at the free-lunch table” which was open to anyone who bought a drink, says Lumea. At political events and lectures, the Emperor would be expected to arrive to say his piece. “Even those who thought the Emperor absurd seemed to enjoy his presence,” says Lumea.
Part of the Emperor’s appeal may have had to do with his charisma and personality. But there was something more to it, suggested Oscar Penn Fitzgerald (1829–1911), a Methodist minister who counted Norton as an occasional parishioner. Fitzgerald felt that it had to do with Norton’s response to financial and mental ruin: “It was a curious idiosyncrasy that led this man, when fortune and reason were swept away at a stroke, to fall back upon this imaginary imperialism. The nature that could thus, when the real fabric of life was wrecked, construct such another by the exercise of a disordered imagination, must have been originally of a gentle and magnanimous type.”
Emperor Norton in 1871 or 1872 [Courtesy of the Collection of the California Historical Society]
With a cult figure like Norton, there will always be some blurring between fact and fiction. Mark Twain, who also lived in San Francisco during the emperor’s reign, modelled the character of the King in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on him, and Robert Louis Stevenson also mentioned Norton in his novel, The Wrecker.
Over the years there have been a few TV adaptations of his life, a couple of written biographies by Allen Stanley Lane and William Drury, and at least three organisations – the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus (a historical drinking club), the Imperial Council of San Francisco (which elects an emperor and empress each year) and the satirical religion of Discordianism – have adopted the Emperor as their patron saint.
As Joel Gazis-Sax wrote in his 1997 essay, The Madness of Joshua Norton: “Most who remember and love the Emperor post-mortemly, love a myth.”
To this end, Lumea has spent the last 12 years trying to separate the man from the myth, and the digitisation of many historical newspapers has helped considerably in this regard.
Still celebrated today: ‘Emperor Norton’ makes an appearance at a parade in San Francisco on June 24, 2018 [Shutterstock]
Some of Norton’s most famous “proclamations” – the one in which he banned people from referring to his adoptive home as “Frisco” (a nickname for the city which may be a play on the word “frisk” as a word for “dance” and which was seen in print from 1950) for example – are most likely fake. Some may have been created by newspaper proprietors seeking readers or pushing their political agendas.
In 1869, The Oakland Daily News, for example, mocked San Francisco by publishing an obviously fake proclamation in which the Emperor called for an impossible bridge. The Emperor frequently issued counter-proclamations taking offence at such fake proclamations – and he took steps to oppose misinformation, such as when he appointed The Pacific Appeal newspaper, founded by African American civil rights and antislavery activist Philip Alexander Bell, as his new “imperial organ”, writing in December 1870 that “we…do hereby appoint the Pacific Appeal our said organ, conditionally, that they are not traitors, and stand true to our colors”.
Joseph Amster, centre, dressed as Emperor Norton, sings ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ at the end of a parade to remember the great San Francisco 1906 earthquake and fire’s 110th anniversary on Friday, April 15, 2016, in San Francisco [Eric Risberg/AP]
Emperor Norton was a visionary, says Ganahl.He was also one of the first media-made celebrities. “A century and a half before we ever heard the name Kardashian, the Emp’s antics made for excellent copy, and he was hounded by the dozens of newspapers that called San Francisco home after the gold rush. What they didn’t directly observe, they made up in a very real ‘phase one’ of Fake News.
“By the time he died at the height of his ‘reign’, he was putting San Francisco on the map as a place that welcomed nuts and dreamers, anyone who coloured outside the lines. And so it remains today.”
Emperor Norton was only ever a local hero, but 150 years after his death, he remains known and loved throughout the Bay Area, says Lumea. “He is seen as a harbinger of San Francisco values, identifying with those on the margins, and fighting for the little guy. The fact that he was doing that from outside of power makes it all the more poignant.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he has ordered his forces to “stop all military activity” in Ukraine, as he declared an “Easter truce” until the end of Sunday.
He said the 30-hour truce would last until 22:00 BST on Sunday (00:00 Moscow time), adding that Russian forces should be prepared to respond to “any possible violations”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv would adhere to the truce.
But he accused Moscow of “trying to create a general impression of a ceasefire” even as “in some places it does not abandon individual attempts to advance and inflict losses on Ukraine”. He did not give any details.
“If Russia is now suddenly ready to truly engage in a format of full and unconditional silence, Ukraine will act accordingly – mirroring Russia’s actions,” he said late on Saturday.
“Our actions are and will be symmetrical. The proposal for a full and unconditional 30-day silence remains on the table — the answer to it must come from Moscow,” he wrote on X.
Zelensky said Ukraine would be ready to extend a truce beyond 20 April, seemingly referring to an earlier proposal from the US for a 30-day ceasefire which Ukraine had already agreed to.
Responding to Putin’s initial announcement, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on X: “Putin has now made statements about his alleged readiness for a cease-fire. 30 hours instead of 30 days.”
“Unfortunately, we have had a long history of his statements not matching his actions. We know his words cannot be trusted and we will look at actions, not words,” he added.
Putin announced the temporary truce at a meeting with his chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov.
“Based on humanitarian considerations… the Russian side announces an Easter truce. I order a stop to all military activities for this period,” Putin told Gerasimov.
“We assume that Ukraine will follow our example. At the same time, our troops should be prepared to repel possible violations of the truce and provocations by the enemy, any aggressive actions.”
The Russian defence ministry said its troops would adhere to the ceasefire provided it was “mutually respected” by Ukraine.
It is not the first time a pause in fighting has been suddenly announced – a previous attempt at a ceasefire during Orthodox Christmas in January 2023 fell apart after both sides failed to agree on a proposal.
Reacting to Putin’s truce announcement, a Foreign Office spokesman in the UK said: “Now is the moment for Putin to truly show he is serious about peace by ending his horrible invasion and committing to a full ceasefire, as the Ukrainian government has called for – not just a one day pause for Easter.”
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people – the vast majority of them soldiers – have been killed or injured on all sides.
The US has been directly talking to Russia as part of its efforts to end the war, but has struggled to make major progress.
Last month, Moscow rejected a proposal for a full and unconditional ceasefire that had been agreed by the US and Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump on Friday warned Washington would “take a pass” on brokering further talks on ending the war in Ukraine unless there was quick progress.
He was speaking after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was not “going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end”, as it had “other priorities to focus on”.
“We need to determine very quickly now – and I’m talking about a matter of days – whether or not this is doable,” he added.
“If it’s not going to happen, then we’re just going to move on.”
The Sunday Telegraph leads with Volodymyr Zelensky accusing Vladimir Putin of failing to uphold an “Easter truce” the Russian leader had called for. Putin said he expects Ukraine to follow the truce until the end of Sunday, but Zelensky said Russian artillery had not stopped. The paper also has a large photo of pop star Jennifer Lopez in Jeddah ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The Sunday Times also leads with Zelensky saying Putin’s proposed truce is a lie. Below this is a story on campaigners who won a Supreme Court battle over the legal definition of a woman saying they have been “inundated with death threats and misogynistic abuse” since the judgment.
More than 80 people a day are being “savaged by out-of-control dogs” and attacks are on the rise, the Sunday Mirror reports. It writes victims and charities want tougher penalties for “reckless owners and dodgy breeders”.
The Observer leads with a story on how Gaza has been “pushed to new depths of despair” by a seven-week-long Israeli blockade that has cut off all aid. Many in Gaza are now more afraid of famine than airstrikes, the paper reports.
The Sunday Express quotes senior Tories who have accused the Labour government of risking national security by “bending the knee” to China. It follows Chancellor Rachel Reeves on Saturday saying it would be “very foolish” not to engage with the world’s second largest economy.
The Mail on Sunday reports that Labour ministers are “secretly plotting” to defy a Supreme Court ruling that woman refers to a biological woman and does not include transwomen. The paper writes the exchanges reveal the “private fury” on Sir Keir Starmer’s frontbench, with minister planning to hold a meeting to decide a way forwards.
The Sun on Sunday leads with a story on how Apprentice winner Dean Franklin is reportedly at the centre of a “rogue trader probe” over his business that won the BBC show. Franklin said he was “not aware of any review or investigation”.
The Sunday People has an interview with the mother of Sally Anne Bowman, a model who was murdered in 2005. Linda Bowman said police “mistakes cost Sally Anne her life”.
And the Daily Star has a story on how a quarter of Brits are “turned on” by dreams of their first car.
The Sunday Telegraph’s front page focuses on scepticism about the so-called “Easter truce” in the Ukraine war. It says critics have described it as a “naked attempt” by President Vladimir Putin to curry favour with Donald Trump, after the US president threatened to walk away from efforts to secure peace.
The Observer leads with the latest from Gaza, reporting that the territory has been pushed to “new depths of despair” by the seven-week-long Israeli military blockade that has cut off aid supplies to the strip. It cites interviews with civilians, medics and humanitarian workers inside Gaza, and says many are now more afraid of the risk of famine than airstrikes. Israel’s government introduced the blockade after accusing Hamas of stealing aid supplies.
“Bending knee to China risks UK Security” is the Sunday Express front page headline, as it quotes senior Conservatives who have accused the government of risking national security over its relations with Beijing. It follows comments from Chancellor Rachel Reeves that it would be “very foolish” not to engage with the world’s second largest economy.
EPA
Emmanuel Macron is set to visit the UK for a state visit in May, the Times reports
PA Media
A corgi whose training included chasing Edinburgh seagulls claimed victory
In its front page splash the Sunday Mirror reports that campaigners are calling for tougher penalties in light of figures that show more than 80 people a day are savaged by out-of-control dogs. It says police statistics show that attacks are on the rise across England and Wales.
But in happier canine news, several papers feature pictures from the annual ‘Corgi Derby’ held at Musselburgh race course in Scotland yesterday. Sixteen competitors took part in this year’s 70-metre sprint with four-year-old Juno from Edinburgh taking victory. The event celebrating the late Queen Elizabeth’s favourite dog breed was first held in 2022 to mark her Platinum Jubilee.
Free breakfast clubs are to launch at 750 schools across England next week but teachers have voiced concerns that government funding for the scheme will not meet the cost.
From Tuesday, thousands of parents can access half an hour of free morning childcare as part of the trial that will run to July, ahead of an expected national rollout.
But teaching unions have raised concerns the funding is too low.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said the move would help with “breaking down barriers to opportunity”.
Labour campaigned on a promise of free breakfast clubs in every English primary school and later tripled funding to £30m.
The scheme will give parents of primary-aged children up to 95 additional hours and save them £450 per year in childcare costs, ministers say.
The headteachers union welcomed the expansion of breakfast clubs, which some schools already run, but said schools have suggested the funding is not enough.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: “While we welcome the intentions behind the programme, the initial feedback we are hearing from many school leaders participating in the pilot is that the funding just isn’t sufficient.
“At a time when school budgets are already stretched, most can ill-afford to subsidise this shortfall.”
He added it was “absolutely crucial” the funding is addressed before the scheme is rolled out nationally and it has received assurance from the government the funding would be looked at carefully during the trial.
Teaching union NASUWT said the scheme would make a “significant contribution” to tackling child hunger but it needed to be closely monitored to ensure funding issues can be addressed without it impacting other provisions within schools.
Announcing the first 750 schools to join the pilot scheme, the Department for Education said breakfast clubs had “an important role to play in the government’s commitment to remove the stain of child poverty”.
Education Secretary Phillipson said: “Free breakfast clubs are at the heart of our Plan for Change, making working parents’ lives easier and more affordable, while breaking down barriers to opportunity for every child.”
Devon tops the list with 25 schools in the programme, followed by England’s largest local authority, Birmingham, with 24.
Both Wales and Scotland have programmes to provide free breakfasts to children in primary schools.
Guidance sent to schools taking part in the pilot scheme says they will receive a set-up payment to cover equipment and material.
Under the scheme, schools will then be reimbursed by the government based on attendance at the clubs – a school with 50% participation in the pilot scheme could get £23,000 a year, the government said.
Police in Ecuador say they have arrested four people in connection with an attack by gunmen at a cockfighting ring in which 12 people died.
Weapons and replica police and army uniforms were seized during police raids in the north-western Manabí province on Friday – a day after the attack in the rural community of La Valencia.
Footage of the attack shared on social media showed gunmen entering the ring and opening fire, as terrified spectators dived for cover.
Reports in local media suggested the attackers in fake military gear were members of a criminal gang whose rivals were at the cockfight.
A criminal investigation has been launched by the provincial authorities.
As many as 20 criminal gangs are believed to be operating in the Latin American country, vying for control over major drug routes.
Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa has said that about 70% of the world’s cocaine now flows through Ecuador’s ports before being shipped to the US and Europe.
The drug is smuggled into Ecuador from neighbouring Colombia and Peru – the world’s two largest producers of cocaine.
This January saw 781 murders, making it the deadliest month in recent years. Many of them were related to the illegal drug trade.
James Welsh, 36, is a YouTuber with thousands of views on his Labubu unboxing videos
James’ reaction as he unboxes a rare, limited edition Labubu toy can only be described as pure, unadulterated joy.
The YouTuber delightedly holds up a brown plush monster, which has been described by collectors as “cute”, “ugly”, “creepy” and everything in between.
Labubus are furry snaggletoothed gremlins, which are designed by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung and sold by Chinese toy company Pop Mart.
They’re almost always sold out online and long queues often form outside the selected shops that stock them.
Labubus are also primarily sold in the blind box format, meaning customers never know what version they’ll get until they open them – a fact collectors have said adds to their appeal.
While it’s difficult to pin their recent rise in popularity to one particular ingredient, celebrity endorsement, social media unboxing videos and their ability to stir up nostalgia are all contributing factors.
Getty Images
Labubus were the hot accessory at Paris Fashion Week this year
James Welsh, from Hampshire, sees his Labubu collectable as an investment, which he tells the BBC “could probably earn a fair bit of money two or three years down the line”.
He has just shy of 30 Labubus which retail at around £25 for an individual toy or £153 for a box of six.
He says he has “spent hundreds and hundreds but not quite thousands” on the dolls.
Labubu maker Pop Mart has doubled its profits in the last year and is eying up global expansion in 2025.
The company, which started 15 years ago, has been described as “elevating toy buying to an act of trendy connoisseurship” and praised for embracing non-traditional designs, which have made them a hit with collectors.
Artist Kasing Lung is behind some of their popular toys including The Monsters series and Labubu.
He credits living in The Netherlands as the inspiration behind the dolls and told Hypbeast “I liked to read storybooks and was influenced by ancient European elf legends”.
Lung added that during his childhood, “there were no game consoles or computers, so I had to draw dolls with a pen, so I had the idea of painting fairy tales since I was a child”.
He first came up with the designs in 2015 and signed a licensing agreement with Pop Mart in 2019 to make them into toys.
Labubu as a name has no specific meaning, it is a fictional character based around an elf-like creature.
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Chinese toy company Pop Mart is known for selling blind boxes and a range of collectables
James says his first thought when he saw the one of the toys was, “they’re creepy but they’re also really cute and I need as many of them as I can get, I need them in every colour”.
The 36-year-old adds, “I think they [provide] some real escapism for millennials as it’s like reverting back to your youth with these toys and collectables.”
A former stylist, he now primarily creates beauty and skincare content, but has recently gained thousands of views on his channel from Labubu unboxing videos.
He tells the BBC: “there is a strong link between these plush pendants and the fashion community as well.”
“They’re a way to express who you are, you can show that through the different characters, which add a pop of colour and fashion is fun, it’s not serious at the end of the day, it’s reflective of who you are.”
There are several iterations of Labubu – from vinyl figures to plush toys – but the keychain versions have become most popular recently.
Chulie Wulie
Labubu toys come in a range of sizes – with the pendant or keychain ranges proving most popular
Labubu’s ascent into mainstream culture has been steady – but was elevated last year by BLACKPINK star Lisa.
The K-pop singer was seen with a Labubu creature hanging from her handbag and also called the toys “her secret obsession” in an interview.
Rihanna was also spotted with one of the toys attached to her bag in recent weeks, which has led to fashion fans replicating her look.
But for collectors such as 22-year-old Chulie, who shares her purchases on TikTok, she says Labubu becoming a “fashion trend” misses the point of why they’re so loved.
“For me, it’s all about the nostalgia and the surprise aspect,” she tells the BBC.
One of Pop Mart’s biggest selling points for collectors is the way their toys are packaged in what’s known as blind boxes, which make the experience of getting one like a lucky dip.
You don’t know what character you are getting until you unseal the package, so it’s always a gamble for collectors.
“You know it’s fun, it’s a dopamine hit”, James says.
“It’s gambling for some of us – kind of like a happy meal, you don’t know what toy you’re getting until you open it up.”
It also makes the toy perfect for the world of social media, as creators can catch their genuine surprise on camera and share it with other fans – something James says provides comfort and “escapism from the real world”.
Chulie says, as a child, she would collect Pokemon trading cards, so collecting another surprise item “triggered memories for me”.
“When you’re having a rough time, especially for me personally, it’s a big serotonin boost to not only buy a collectable and keep it, but share the experience with other people as well,” she adds.
Others have compared Labubus to Beanie Babies, which were popular in the 1990s and 2000s, and say collecting Labubus evokes feelings of childhood nostalgia.
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Some Labubu fans have cited the surprise element of packets of Pokemon cards as being influential in their interest in blind boxes as adults
For some fans, just documenting the experience of getting a Labubu is a talking point, with many showing the long queues and hours of research required to find out where new collections are being stocked.
It’s prompted backlash on some social media channels, with users criticising collectors that have bought large numbers of items.
“Just because you don’t understand someone’s hobby, doesn’t mean it’s not valid in any way,” James says.
While James hasn’t spent hours and hours queuing to build his collection, he says he “has gone out of my way” to source authentic dolls online. As with any popular item, counterfeits have made their way onto the market.
“I spend a fair bit of money on my hobby, but it’s my adult money,” he jokes.
Chulie says she currently has 10 Labubus, but has sold some to other fans when she’s ended up with the same toy twice.
“When I first got exposed to them, I wasn’t sure why people were spending money on them, because in the US they start at around $21 [£16], which is minimum wage for a lot of people.
“But it’s so addictive getting one, and it’s really hard to stop buying once you start,” she adds.
As well as an influencer, author, broadcaster and RNIB ambassador, Lucy Edwards is hoping to become a mum
Blind content creator and TikTok star Lucy Edwards says she’s “so excited” to be on a health kick to undergo IVF for gene editing purposes, but reveals the dilemma she faced in deciding to screen out the very gene that made her blind.
Lucy and her husband Ollie married at Kew Gardens two years ago and are now ready to start a family – but there are complications to consider.
Lucy has the rare genetic condition Incontinentia Pigmenti (IP) and lost her sight due to this aged 17, just months after meeting Ollie.
The condition runs through the female line – Lucy’s mum has IP although isn’t blind, her Grandma did too and her great-aunt was blind in one eye.
Lucy is totally blind, but, if she had been a boy, she may not have survived.
The abnormal IP gene is located on the X chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes, while males have X and Y, meaning the appearance of the gene can be more catastrophic in male pregnancies.
“My grandma actually had nine miscarriages,” Lucy says.
This is one of the facts that played into the complicated decision Lucy and Ollie made to opt for pre-implantation genetic testing, a special type of IVF where embryos are created outside of the body and screened for the genetic condition. Only those embryos which are not affected by the condition are placed back into the womb.
Without medical intervention, Lucy says there would be four potential outcomes to any pregnancy she carried: A healthy and unaffected boy or girl, an affected boy she would likely miscarry or who would be born with severe brain damage or an affected girl.
She pauses, then laughs: “That sounds horrible, doesn’t it? That’s me.”
Blind influencer Lucy Edwards on writing and IVF
And that’s the quandary. IVF will edit out the very thing that has made Lucy who she is today – a journalist, advocate, author and broadcaster.
It is an emotive topic of debate. The most well-known conversation is around Down’s syndrome and the number of women who choose to abort a pregnancy once their baby is tested and diagnosed as having the condition. The question is around the value people place on other peoples’ lives which may not look like our own.
In 2021 campaigner Heidi Crowter, who herself has Down’s syndrome, challenged legislation allowing foetuses with the condition to be aborted up until birth. She took her case to the High Court arguing the rules were discriminatory to disabled people who could live a good life. She lost the case and the subsequent argument she made at the Court of Appeal. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) later rejected it as well, but Heidi continues to campaign to have the law overturned.
It is something Lucy is very aware of and she and her husband have spent a long time considering.
“It’s understanding that it is removing that part of me that makes me, me,” Lucy says. “It’s such a personal decision and I know that I’m opening myself up for possible designer baby discussions, but I know I’m doing it for the right reasons.”
Lucy says first being diagnosed with IP and then losing her sight as a teenager were both traumatic events and she wants to minimise the likelihood of miscarriage to limit any future traumatic load.
She says she found it impossible to “knowingly” consider having a baby naturally once she knew the science was available to give a baby the healthiest start possible.
“If I had a baby and, unknowingly, I had a gorgeous, gorgeous baby with disabilities, I would be so thankful, so happy and amazed but knowingly having this gene? That’s why we’re having IVF.”
IP doesn’t just cause blindness, it can also cause severe epilepsy and more difficult outcomes. Lucy says having the option to ensure complications were not passed on felt like both a responsibility and a privilege previous generations did not have.
“Whether we like it or not, we have to be responsible here. Maybe a responsible issue for you, if you have IP or another genetic disorder, is to have a child naturally and we are not judging you in any shape or form, this is just our decision.”
In response to their openness around this decision comments were overwhelmingly positive from Lucy’s fans which she thinks might be because she is so “disability positive” in her everyday life – “I love being blind,” she frequently states.
But Lucy says responses have been different around the world. When she was working in Japan and her content was reaching audiences unfamiliar with her story, she faced a lot more trolling.
“I got a lot of abusive comments that go into my spam filter questioning why I would be a mother,” she says. “I know that I’m going to get a lot of abuse, but I’m just going to block them.
“I’m going to be OK. All I think about is the other mothers that have come before me who are competent, capable and resilient.”
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Lucy, who is known for her How Does A Blind Girl… series of videos, is overjoyed by the prospect of IVF but she has also been frank about the fact she currently does not qualify, owing to her current weight, a sensitive element of IVF treatment that many keep to themselves.
NHS guidelines specify your Body Mass Index (BMI) must be 30 or under to qualify – a healthy BMI is considered to be between 18.5 and 24.9.
“I need to be a BMI of 30 and I’m very open that I need to lose 9kg,” Lucy says. “I’ve already lost 15kg.”
Her health journey has involved swimming, lifting weights and many runs with Ollie tethered to her as her sighted guide. She has also found a love for batch cooking nutritious meals which she posts about on all of her channels on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube and the workarounds she has developed as a blind cook.
“I wanted a positive representation of losing weight online because it’s all about this blinking jab,” she says, referring to weight loss injections. “I just wanted to lose it healthily, have lots of nice food, talk about meal prep and just smile and run.”
Once she hits the required BMI, Lucy will qualify for three rounds of IVF on the NHS.
She will contact her consultant, after which she has to “spit in a cup” and offer up her DNA for genetic testing and analysis.
Over a period of about three months, a genetics team will “make a bespoke test to find the gene within my eggs,” Lucy explains.
Meanwhile Lucy will inject herself with trigger shots to stimulate the follicles within her ovaries to increase the number of eggs produced which will be retrieved, and then made into embryos with Ollie’s sperm.
The embryos will then be tested so only ones without the IP gene will be possible candidates. Those embryos will be “shuffled about” so Lucy and Ollie don’t know which will be selected in terms of gender or other genetic qualities, and implanted into Lucy, who will carry the baby to term.
Lucy can’t wait for the moment she holds her baby in her arms.
“It will never stop being a thing within my mind that this gene is being eradicated,” she admits. “But I am very happy in my decision.”
A few days ago Lucy posted on Instagram, her cardigan tightened at the back with a hairband to make it smaller and fit.
“I’ve lost so much [weight] that my clothes are too loose now so we had to tie it up with a bobble,” she tells her followers.
“Fingers crossed [we’re] only a few weeks away from ringing the clinic.”
